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Recently I decided to add a double din GPS unit to my 2004 Dodge Ram. This is not normally a hard thing to do but the 2004 Dodge Ram is only made to fit a single din. Follow these steps at your own risk. I assume no responsibility. Do your own research and you know what you will be getting into.

What you will need:

Dremel
Replacement Bezel (not required)
Bondo
Rough to fine sandpaper
Spray paint
Plummer’s Floss

I wont go into the particular unit I installed in the truck or how to wire it because it is pretty easy to figure out. The first thing I suggest, although not required, is to buy a replacement bezel incase you ruin yours. I found one for $50 on ebay. If you ruin yours, you should be able to buy a replacement from the dealer but it will be pricey.

The first step, is to buy your double din stereo and see if it will fit in the area where your stereo goes. I think a 1 and 1/2 din unit will fit with no modification to your truck. If it fits, no modification is necessary to the dash. If however, your double din does not fit, you will have to cut away some excess plastic so it will fit with your Dremel.

As soon as you can snugly fit your stereo in place, you will want to use plummer’s floss or some sort of bracket to mount your unit in place. As soon as you know you can get your unit in the place you want, go ahead and wire it up if you want to. My suggestion would be to buy a $5 wire harness adapter so you don’t have to cut your truck’s factory plug and can easily plug or un-plug your unit.

Now it is time to measure or eyeball if you are me, and cut out space for your unit. I held my plastic bezel over the unit about 10 times cutting and shaving off plastic a little bit at a time making sure not to cut too much with your Dremel. You might want to tape off where you need to cut.

Once you are satisfied you have cut enough plastic or cut too much, it is time to get messy with Bondo. You may have noticed there is some spare space on the left and right side of the unit with the bezel installed. Before moving to the Bondo, I cut away some plastic and used plastic resin to glue them into the sides.

Ok now Bondo. Just get some Bondo at your local Lowe’s or Home Depot and get ready to have some patience. If you have never experienced Bondo before, you must know you have to act quick and it will probably take you many applications to get the shape you want. You may even get to the point where you think you are finished, sand it, and find you have to add more because of a bubble. As long as you mix it correctly, (instructions are on the box) the Bondo will harden really quickly. If you have to add a lot of Bondo to one area and it wont stay in place before hardening, you can tape cardboard in place to hold it.

Once you feel you have the desired shape, time to get sanding. I would first cut away any access Bondo, sand the excess, and make sure it fits. If you don’t like the shape, add more Bondo making sure all dust is gone before applying it. As you can see, this took me many times before I got it where I wanted it. I also could have kept going to perfect it more but I got to a certain point where I was satisfied.

When you are ready for final Sanding I suggest this is where you put your effort. I did not mention this earlier but it is important to make sure your Bondo is dried and hard before sanding. Start with rough paper and move to very fine. My final sanding ended up with a sponge.

Once you have finished sanding, time to paint. At first, I decided to go with a glossy color but my horrible sanding stood out so I decided to go with a flat black. You also may have to paint the whole bezel in case you nicked a part or sanded an un-intended area.

The original Gray I decided to use looked great when painting but from the driver’s seat, some minor imperfections showed up and I went with a flat black which turned out much better. If you want to go with a glossy color, make sure your sanding is good. Finally, the finished product is below (not flat black) I’ll add that picture later.

Tell me what you think.

Greg

****Update 02/15/2010. I decided to paint the whole thing flat black. I found there were much less visual defects you could see with my bad sanding this way.

I have tried many GPS trackers over time and have finally found one I will use permanently because of a mixture of ease of use and affordability. Easytrack GPS is the way to go.

First, lets take a look at the costs. $230 makes it one of the most affordable units but it gets better… You get the first year free and it only costs $20-$35 a year.

-You get unlimited updated tracking every 2, 5, 15, or 30 minutes for free and get notified by email or text message.

-You get an amazing web site to access 24/7 which utilizes Microsoft’s latest mapping software allowing for a physical birds eye view of the area or a 3D map where available.

-You can set up Geo fences which allows you to set up a virtual barrier that will notify you in the event your vehicle goes out of it’s fence. This will cost a track unit which I will explain later.

-Web based vehicle starter disable/enable is included for free if you know how to install. You will need some technical knowledge if you want to do this but should you not want to, the unit will function perfect without it.

-On demand locating in real time, costs a track unit.

When you sign up, you get 500 track units which should be more than enough unless you utilize the virtual fence feature or want to track immediately in real time. Note that tracking updated as low as two minutes is included and does not cost tracking units. Did I mention no monthly fee whatsoever!

The instructions that came with the unit were more than enough for me to figure out full installation including the starter disable function but free technical support is available if needed. This system uses a combination of GPS and Cell phone technology which both are required for the system to work. Coordinates are figured via a GPS antenna, a small box does the work and then communicates via the web site of your car’s location. The cell phone part uses AT&T so if you don’t have AT&T coverage, you will not be able to communicate with your vehicle. Note that you will probably not be able to use real time tracking or starter disable if you don’t have AT&T coverage in your area.

If you would like to try this amazing system go here: http://easytrackgps.net/fleet.html If you do get a unit from them, please know that I have no relation with them and they have no idea who I am but I would like you to tell them where you received your information.

I just updated my iPhone to the new version 1.1.3. There are some very cool features but we are still missing some well needed features.

What we got:
-Ability to make web sites booked marked on the main screen. You can now bookmark a web site and add a link on your main iPhone screen. Cool I guess, makes it easy for me to get to Google quicker.
-Ability to move icons. This is nice.
-Pinpoint yourself on a map and some other cool mapping features. You can make a pinpoint in real time with your actual location and map yourself somewhere.
-Ability to send a single sms message to multiple recipients. Nice.
-Windows 64 bit support. Finally!
-Apps. The SDK will be released soon and we will be seeing cool software.

What is still missing:
-Copy and Paste. What is Apple thinking. We need a way to copy and paste right away. I suspect that we would have this if it were Apple’s choice but I suspect there is no way to create this on their touch screen without it affecting the way their current touch system works. Although there must be some way because any Windows Mobile phone can do this.
-Video. We still have no video. All Apple has to do to is make the software tell the camera to take more pics in succession. No hardware modification needed.
-Microsoft Exchange Server support. I think there is no way we will get this but I would really like to see real Exchange support not this imap junk.
-Voice Dialing. We are still missing voice dial. I hope some company creates this with the sdk.

That is all I can think of right now. I cant wait to see some of the cool software from people from the sdk.